Pfizer ends advertisements featuring inventor of artificial heart

Pfizer has cancelled print and television advertisements in which Robert Jarvik, inventor of an artificial heart, promotes the use of atorvastatin (Lipitor), the company’s cholesterol lowering drug.

In one of the Pfizer advertisements, Dr Jarvik says, “Lipitor is one of the most researched medicines. I’m glad I take Lipitor, as a doctor, and a dad.”

In the advertisements Dr Jarvik says that he took the drug when diet and exercise were not enough to control his cholesterol concentration. He is shown, trim and athletic, rowing a scull across a pristine mountain lake.

In January the House of Representatives’ Energy and Commerce Committee began investigating …